Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Let it be granted that all persons who are habitually contriving and laboring to promote the happiness of all around them are benevolent persons. This basis proposition being conceded to be true, the reasoner proceeds to present evidence that the person in question habitually is laboring for the good of others. This being done, he draws the conclusion that this person is included in the class which have been granted to be benevolent.

Reasoning, then, is a process for exhibiting evidence that a point which is disputed is included in a proposition already believed and allowed.

But suppose the disputant denies the truth of the basis or foundation proposition, then it becomes necessary to establish that proposition by another act of reasoning. In order to do this, still another proposition is assumed which is allowed to be true, and which the reasoner then attempts to show includes his former basis proposition.

This process may thus be continued till, finally, it comes to pass that the basis proposition assumed is an intuitive truth. In this case the victory is secure; for whatever can be shown to be embraced in an intuitive truth must be conceded to be true, and whatever is contradictory to an intuitive truth must be allowed to be false.

Now it can be shown that all the reliable practical knowledge of this life can be thus traced back till it is seen to rest on some intuitive truth as its basis.

So, also, all the doctrines and duties, both of natural and revealed religion, can be shown to rest on these intuitive truths. This indicates the propriety of the name given to these first principles as principles of reason and fundamental truths.

Here, then, is presented the foundation of the hope so confidently expressed, that a time is coming when, in all the great questions which now agitate humanity with doubts, discussions, and conflict, there shall result universal harmony and unity of opinion. If such intuitive principles are implanted in all human minds; if there is a certain test by which these principles can be eliminated and established; and if, by a sure process of reasoning, every correct practical and religious opinion can be shown to rest on these principles, and every false one to contradict them, then we can plainly perceive the true path to this golden age.

It is to cultivate the powers of the human intellect, to train every mind, from early life, to detect the true laws of reason, and to practice accurately the process of reasoning. Not that this alone will suffice without the attending cultivation of the moral powers, and the promised blessing of heavenly aid. But the first would powerfully tend to secure the second, and then the third would inevitably be bestowed.

Before proceeding farther, it is desirable to recognize the fact that the word reason is used in several ways. Sometimes it signifies simply the intuitive truths. Sometimes it includes all those principles and powers of mind which are employed in the act of reasoning. Sometimes it refers to the intellect in distinction from the feelings. In all cases, however, the connection will determine in which of these uses it is employed.

[1] Note A.